Posted
by
Soulskillon Sunday December 21, 2008 @02:13PM
from the taking-their-toys-and-going-home dept.

iammani writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down. ... The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking. 'We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,' Warner said in a statement."Warner's deal with YouTube to make those videos available came just prior to YouTube's acquisition by Google.

1. Warner made a deal with YouTube to allow YT to show Warners videos.
2. Warner decides it doesn't like the deal anymore so they pull their videos, against the terms of the deal.
3. God kills a baby [thebricktestament.com]

lol, thanks for bringing that site to my attention. the Skeptic's Annotated Bible is a pretty good biblical reference, but the Brick Testament brings so much more to the scriptures than just skeptical analysis.

The experience of the music fan at a live performance is not "easily copied", and live performances are where they make the real money. Digital copies should be treated for what they are, enjoyable advertising, and priced accordingly, from free to maybe a dime a song, tops. Charging a dollar for three megs of digital bits is serious price gouging, the fans know it, anyone who can use a computer knows it, that's why the public is not adopting their prices at the levels they expect. The music majors want to insure the same unit pricing they had back when it really cost a lot of money to deliver a copy, that doesn't exist now with downloads, it cost maybe a penny or something to actually do that. They can make and deliver the same "unit" now for a teeny fraction of what is used to cost 10-20 years ago, but they want the same gross purchase price? Hell no! They need to backoff the drugs a little once in awhile and sober up and enter the 21st century.

As to movies, again, it's not the same going to a theater with a 20 foot screen and a hundred grand sound system as it is sitting around your TV, even if it is a good one. If they offered a cheap DVD on exit from the theater, say for around 3 bucks or so, they'd get immediate feedback on the movie, plus instant impulse buy revenue. 15-20 bucks for a plastic disk though..price gouging, they can stamp them things out and put them in a paper sleeve for like a buck easy at big scales, which means they could sell them for three and make profit.

Basically, since the late 90s or so I just stopped buying full price entertainment media, it's a price ripoff. I'll buy it used for cheap, that's it, picked up a few used DVDs the other day for a few bucks apiece..because that is all they are worth. They annoyed someone who was a faithful purchaser since the late 1950s with their blatant ripoff price gouging. In the same period that computers went from 3,000 bucks to 300 bucks, and got loads better in quality and performance, the music and movie guys have the SAME PRICES for stuff that is not much better at all, it's the same notes, the same scenes. Screw that, screw them. Price gouging loons.

CDs with music I'll pay a buck, tops. I'm not going to keep purchasing the same damn song or album just because a new format comes out, already did that, not going to keep doing that though. I went vinyl to 8 track to cassette then CD, then..no way, I don't care about blue hi-def lazer ray disks, they can stuff it, I don't need to see the nose hairs and zits in detail of some scrawny metrosexual "artist". I think they should get paid for their work and creations, I certainly do not "pirate", but trying to make a killing off of people when we all know what digital copies REALLY cost is just stupid, they are out to lunch on their business model and prices.

Technology moves forward, some things got a lot cheaper to make, so they should drop prices accordingly and make profit on larger volume sales, and with music, the traditional way, touring or local live "work".

The experience of the music fan at a live performance is not "easily copied", and live performances are where they make the real money. Digital copies should be treated for what they are, enjoyable advertising, and priced accordingly

Have you thought about the ramifications of this for musical styles not amenable to live performance, such as a lot of the Beatles' post-Revolver work?

You would be surprised how well heavily layered, complex music translates live. I saw Radiohead this summer and was amazed by their ability to perform songs that seemed impossible to replicate on stage. They didn't just lip-sync and strum along to pre-recorded tracks either, and overall, I enjoyed the live renditions more than the studio versions.

Other bands that produce heavily edited music, like Gnarls Barkley, the Roots, Beck, and Nine Inch Nails, have had success as live performers. I read how GirlTa

What usual argument? I can't remember that being the argument widely used when criticizing the practices of the music industry.

Artists deserve the money for their work. I doubt there are many people who question that, even less so on grounds that it's easy to copy it. What most people don't accept is the greed of studios who try to rip off not only the customers but also the artists.

I've never seen it stated on slashdot (or anywhere, really), that artists don't deserve compensation.

Displeasure with a specific economic model does not mean displeasure with economics itself. I buy all my music off of iTunes. I don't *want* more physical crap, I don't *want* the disc, I want the music.

For those artists and labels that don't want to sell via iTunes (or Amazon, in a pinch), there are other ways to acquire their music without buying a disc. I *want* to buy their music. I *do* believe they deserve to be paid. If they don't want to show up to the party, it's their own damned fault.

As for the labels themselves. They are outmoded business models, and must either evolve or die. Artists really don't need them like they used to. Their remaining relevance going forward is their catalog of copyrighted material which, unfortunately, looks like it will never go out of copyright.

We all know how much they care about fairly compensating the people who actually made the music.

What's worse is that videos were never intended to generate revenue on their own, they are advertising for the artist. No record label ever had a problem with MTV making money from commercials in between videos. No doubt there are absolutely no provisions in the artists' contracts for revenues generated by videos either, and no doubt we'll start to see YouTube clips of signed artists protesting this, which the RIAA can't yank.

I keep seeing people point this out, but I believe they are missing the point to a large degree. Youtube for a large segment of listeners isn't advertising for buying a song, its a replacement for it. Why would I spend money and go through the hassle of actually buying a CD when I can have any song/video I want from almost any popular band playing within a matter of seconds on youtube? Its easier and cheaper. (and perfectly legal) Personally, I haven't actually bought music in years for this exact reas

Let me know when Youtube makes it easy to make and maintain a playlist of songs, artists, albums, etc, that I like to listen to, and will automatically shuffle them in playback and do, in general, everything Winamp does.

Why would I spend money and go through the hassle of actually buying a CD when I can have any song/video I want from almost any popular band playing within a matter of seconds on youtube? Its easier and cheaper. (and perfectly legal) Personally, I haven't actually bought music in years for this exact reason and I know that there are a lot of other people out there like me.

Buying a CD literally takes LESS than a minute on Amazon and you get free shipping.

So do you rip the music off Youtube? Or do you just interrupt what you are doing every 4 minutes to restart the song or change tracks? Either way, it sounds less than optimal. How do you get any work done while listening to music?

I use Youtube to listen to a song I am interested in a few times and maybe scope out the rest of the tracks on the album. If I like it I buy it DRM free as an MP3 or CD. Then (1) I enjoy listeni

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.

fairer than the radio stations and MTV who charge artists/labels for the promotion they provide.

and (if you bother to RTFA), Google was offering to compensate the artist (even though if they had to do this with every single video YouTube would go out of business) but Warner Music wanted a bigger cut.

if Warner Music were smart, they'd leave their videos up and enjoy the free promotion they're getting out of it rather than having to spend millions of dollars on marketing, advertising, payola, etc. that's what

I did RTFA. I'm sure you did too, but your comprehension appears lacking. No figures are provided, therefore you're simply making assumptions to suit your point of view.

I don't find arguments based the simplistic assertion of pre-internet technology and business models from the 80s particularly convincing. I believe technology is capable of changing the way the world works. I reckon the idea of an artist getting YouTube revenue is a great one, far more important than what I might think of the existence and

It looks like the labels are doubly incompetent: MTV takes their money, but then it doesn't bother to play any music videos at all.

Parent got modded funny, but many of us remember the 80s when MTV started, and they truly ran the same model as the radio - 10-12 random songs per hour, interspersed with "VJ" dialog and commercials.

Slowly, slowly, they began to add "shows", usually 30 minutes in length. Some were heavily music-oriented such as the 'unplugged' series, while others were lighter such as "Remote Control". However, they all gave the ADVERTISERS what they were seeking: an easily labeled audience.

You see: since MTV was the first and largest of its kind, its audience was also pretty vague. "College student" was about all you could say and be close. But advertisers like narrower demographics: rich/poor, black/white, male/female. In its early days, when ad dollars were cheaper, they were willing to take a chance. As MTV got bigger and more expensive, they couldn't take such chances.

MTV splintered. "Yo, MTV Raps!" and other shows were aimed at smaller and clearer groups. Advertisers were largely happy, and viewers who didn't know better were also happy. We lost that random hour of music, though. I miss that opportunity that came when I could flip on a channel and discover a new rap song I would never have seen, or country, or any one of dozens of genres that I would have never 'picked' but was suddenly exposed to.

So: I put it to the/. masses. What is the current, best channel of media for opening one's horizons? Is it Pandora? Is it still Youtube? Or is there some other place that one can be 'fed' a steady flow of music from a wide net of types? Is there a venue where the music is more international? Where can I find Bollywood followed by rap?

I know they used to play music videos, but I also know that my 486 66Mhz computer used to play cutting edge video games. At around the same period in history if I'm not mistaken.

I would venture to guess that YouTube is by far the most prominent way of distributing the multi-million dollar music videos that record companies make to promote the sale of albums. I'd also venture to guess that Warner never bothered to find out one way or the other. More likely, they just got the idea in their heads that "TV = Sp

A little bit, yes.Completely unregulated markets *would* be all bailout, all the time... for the rich and powerful. A likely outcome of Libertarian market policies would be a world of overpriced goods where the state of the art hasn't advanced in decades.:( People suck.

Its quite obvious they are failing to see where the interest is. Their options are to provide free access to music video's and put them in front of literally millions of people, or they can stick to radio and mtv...

I totally agree - I've gotten exposure to artists I may never have known about if it weren't for hearing them in a YouTube video. I've purchased the music I've liked. That's what they want, isn't it? Warner Music ought to be paying YouTube, not the other way around. It's free advertising.

And you consider yourself representative even thought you've bought literally dozens of albums? Does it really make sense to use your comparatively unusual example as an argument?

It's strange to me that we're talking about a YouTube as if it were just a TV channel. Surely we can handle the concept of new business models as well as new technologies here. I sometimes "tune in" to YouTube to listen to my choice of music, not what the major labels are pushing that week. Clearly this is a change; an artist can't

Why is your behaviour as a consumer relevant if most other consumers behaviour is different? (I should say *particularly* relevant, I don't mean to say people like us who buy a lot music shouldn't be taken in account)

Why should YouTube be considered exactly the same as a TV channel in face of overwhelming evidence that the internet is a different beast altogether?

How on earth is the interests of the people in their late 30's a good indication of the college age group?

Let's see here, you click on a link and are shown a page full of ads with a video on it. You ignore the ads, but the people that think you might click on an ad pay to have it there. YouTube rakes in the money each time you click one of those links.

Free exposure? I don't think so. Those ads are paid for and are bid up to the maximum the market will bear. So where is the money in this game? It all belongs to Google and they don't feel like sharing.

'We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters.... Having seen the most recent agreements, appropriate compensation for artists from these kind of things seems to be zero, so I think they are already getting a fair deal.

Some were... A person named Skidvid put together a list of the "Top 30 Most Famous Music Videos Ever" and it is quite a lot of real art, not just the music. You can find almost all of them on Youtube, but perhaps some Warner property will start dropping off. Anyone know of a different place to watch them? I wonder what Google says...

In the early dark days of the internet, big companies sued small fan sites because they infringed on logos and copyrights. How dare you run a Star Wars fan site, or an X-Files fan site with racy pictures of Scully?

Then SLOWLY over the years, companies seemed to realize that fans on the internet increased buzz, visibility and mindshare for their products. Now they cater directly to the fan base by pandering at Comic-Con and such.

Warner wants a bigger piece of revenue for the videos being shown, but they're not thinking long term. It isn't just direct revenue of showing the videos, but the hype that comes along with it. If someone forwards a video to another person (or rather a link to the video) they are advertising that artist to their friends.

Monty Python has it right. They are posting clips on YouTube for people to watch for free (fans would post them anyways, only to have them taken offline) but Monty Python now has direct control over the portal, and can include links to purchase Monty Python material on Amazon.

Getting execs of any sort to change their business model is one of the hardest things to do in any business. For the most part, you have to replace the execs to get the business to change. For example, Microsoft is finally beginning to change their business model, right after Gates left. Apple changed their business model when they brought Jobs back in. Warner Music (as well as the rest of the labels that the RIAA represents) has yet to change its business mod

Then SLOWLY over the years, companies seemed to realize that fans on the internet increased buzz, visibility and mindshare for their products. Now they cater directly to the fan base by pandering at Comic-Con and such.

Yep, you've got it exactly right.

I work for a video game company, and our fan community is something that's actively promoted. We provide kits with official artwork, music tracks & sound effects, links to popular community sites from ours, etc. We employ a full-time community manager to provide a communication link between our fans and our development team. This is all outside the scope of our more traditional marketing department or customer support systems. I don't feel this effort is wasted. It'

Warner wants a bigger piece of revenue for the videos being shown, but they're not thinking long term. It isn't just direct revenue of showing the videos, but the hype that comes along with it. If someone forwards a video to another person (or rather a link to the video) they are advertising that artist to their friends.

The "problem" is, the labels saw how much money companies like MTV made. They see places like Youtube as the next MTV and they absolutely wants a piece (or the whole pie) of it. Basically,

If advertising has value, then there's nothing wrong in principle for one corporation to negotiate with another over the appropriate split. This is even more relevant given that online revenues from advertising are expected to be part of the entertainment business model in future.

What actual numbers do you have to know that it is Warner making the bigger mistake?

I said asking for a revenue split is fair. However, enough businesses are deciding they make enough from YouTube exposure to allow their content on YouTube for free, yet Warner wants to pull all their content unless they get a HIGHER cut?

Actually, according to the article other companies are *not* allowing their content for free.

You didn't say asking for a split is fair, you said Warner was losing out on free advertising by not simply accepting whatever Google chooses to give them, which is an interesting approach to negotiation. The notion of "free advertising" makes no sense under one particular assumption, namely that online distribution via YouTube is in fact one of the products they see a market for. Whether it will prove true I don't

I think Warner should make a bill for congress to pass banning the internet as it has been terribly harmful to the recording industries CD/retail store distribution model. Look at all the harm the internet has done to the recording industry executives . And while we are discussing these serious problems - non-label music is really infringing on their profitability as well - also the internet's fault. So I say we all write our representatives and ask them to support banning the internet so we can go back to a more fair and industry friendly music distribution model. Thank you for your time. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled program.

because we probably shouldn't allow just ANYONE to be able to publish a book or write a paper. Perhaps we could allow Warner to control the printers too so that they could supervise and approve only those who should be allowed to write books or publish papers. just food for thought. i'm full of good ideas like this just ask me.

Time-Warner is just trying to save face with Wall Street analysts. This is actually funny because on Friday Google started pulling T-W video's way before the T-W announcement. Google's news release is basically "sometimes you can't reach an agreement with a vendor and you simply stop doing business with them (Time-Warner)".

Next Year's T-W News Release: Music sales are down due to the recession, not the fact that we no longer are hosted on YouTube.

Stupidity that Warners thinks that YouTube and everyone else will have to cave into them and their terms (like any alleged filesharer sued by the RIAA) in the mistaken belief that: 1) Everyone needs their product; and 2) That they still have a monopoly on that product.

Lies that any of this additional money would actually go to the artists. (Think of the children<<<<<<<< artists!)

And now Warner will receive exactly $0, while the users will simply p2p the videos that they -really- want to watch.

Warner took the potential offerings and threw them away, and now they will complain that their IP is being pirated.

So before the RIAA even asks: there should be no gov't bailout for mismanaged companies that piss on legitimate opportunities to -earn- revenue.

Hell, they don't even have to do anything other than put a stamp of approval on the deal. The music and videos are already made, the site and bandwidth is hosted by a third party. All they have to do is sit back and count money. This move is just plain irresponsible. They think they are holding out for more value -- from where? Who is going to pay more?

>> 'We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,' Warner said in a statement."

Hey warner, so your videos get pulled. Good for you, and all the best.

To borrow from the Soup Nazi, if I may: "NO EXPOSURE FOR YOU".

I was just watching a couple of concert videos the other day from an old prog band called Wishbone Ash (they sound like old 70's Rush). I'd never heard of these guys before, but I really liked the sound, and I went right over to Amazon and I bought 2 CD's.

If I hadn't seen the vids on You Tube, I don't think I'd have ever known about this band. So they now have a new fan, and on Christmas eve, I'm going to introduce them to some other guys who like the same type of music.

It's like the modern equivalent of trading records... But hey, if Warner wants to pull the vids, then let them. There's lots of other music out there...

Somehow, I have a feeling that Youtube/Google may turn around and help make smaller groups produce their own music sans labels. At this time, Google has NOT thrown anything into hurting the labels and actually was helping them. But I could see Google creating software and website that is designed to help them record and market their own stuff. If that happens, who has a better understanding of the net; Time Warner/Sony/EMI or Google?
TWI's bad management and greed may actually kill them dead within 5 years

But I could see Google creating software and website that is designed to help them record and market their own stuff.

That would be preferable to a new label: Google Music (gMusic?). But how many artists are also tech-savvy to use those tools? Many may prefer to sign up and let Google do everything from production up to the marketing. But then, wouldn't a Google Label be evil too and contrary to company policy?

CDs sales are declining, yet your argument is that because you as an individual still buy CDs at a rate much greater than the average person, it is only YouTube that should financially benefit from Warner's content attracting visitors to the site. I don't follow the logic.

The idea that the punter has free access to the catalogue, for which the label is compensated for by the site - that is a new business model that makes sense to me if the business parties can work out a deal. Once the quality is high enoug

Admittedly, there is an upside to this, if it removes the many thousands of "video" slideshows from Youtube. You know the ones: lots of pics of a celebrity, unrelated music track, and tagged spammed into oblivion. You click on it thinking it's what you are looking for and... no...

Video is video. Slideshows aren't. Someone should set up Powerpointtube. Ken Burns has a lot to answer for.

Same as when NBC pulls their shows from YouTube. The internets immediately surmised that NBC didn't know what they were doing, didn't understand the importance of internet viewing and only YouTube can deliver video over the internets.

The pundits (including slashdot pundits) did a great job of making a straw man, but were very wrong on what NBC understood and where they were headed. Hulu has been a huge success and most importantly to NBC Universal, it deli

For hulu you just go there, click about 3 times and you're watching in your browser.

With bittorrent, you have to install a couple programs, a couple codecs and then still once in a while it turns out the program you downloaded was a crappy encode and you have to go get another one.

I do agree the bittorrent route is pretty easy and it has the advantage that you have the file forever instead of having to stream it again, but it's not the easiest method, which is why hulu has taken

Thats funny, cause I just put utorrent in my startup, then whenever I want to watch a show I just double click the one I want. The whole initial setup took literally minutes thanks to utorrent, k-lite codec pack and tvrss.net

If Hulu shows me "Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States", I can't really care about them. They didn't understand the Internet's 101. If their market is USA, there is something called Tivo and TV on/off button:)

Ah, there we go again. Just because hulu isn't available in your area, that means that the people putting their content on it (NBC Universal) don't "understand the internet".

The fact is that NBC is out to make money. They can put stuff on Hulu in the US and make money. But overseas, they already sold the rights to someone else (for money), and thus they don't have the option of offering the content on the internet in those countries.

So, if the content you want isn't available in your country on the internet

Hmnn, you know what I did the other day? I watched a video from an NBC video in youtube... wtf is hulu?

Same as when NBC pulls their shows from YouTube. The internets immediately surmised that NBC didn't know what they were doing, didn't understand the importance of internet viewing and only YouTube can deliver video over the internets.

I think the verdict is still out on Hulu, though I agree it seems that they have done well, its just too early. Still a great counter example is iTunes. NBC figured out that mistake pretty quick and came running back after losing millions of dollars and the goodwill of the rabid Mac fanboy. I would argue that Hulu is an anomaly because it is one of the few things they have done right. I hardly blame the average/.er for calling them dopes on this one.

Not quite. Hulu still has yet to grasp the concept to its full extent. Certain shows (notably House and Battlestar Galactica) are not posted on Hulu until AFTER the following episode airs. If I miss an episode and want to catch up, I'm still one behind. Of course, people complain about this, and they either delete the comments, or trot out the apologists to try and make the complainers feel guilty about wanting what was originally provided (new episodes for all shows used to be

YouTube thoughtfully provide a facility to replace the audio track on your uploaded video with another public domain/Creative Commons track. I was asked to either remove my home-made video to Rainbow's 'Eyes Of The World' completely, or to replace the copyrighted audio with something else from their library. I chose Tiny Tim singing 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips'. Somewhat surreal. I don't think it will reflect well on Rainbow's hired bull terriers, and ultimately it will not reflect well on Rainbow, either.

You tube should respond that Warner music's content is taking up a significant slice f their bandwidth bill, pay up. YouTube is a carrier service like public TV and Warner is a content provider getting millions of dollars of free airtime, they should pay for their airtime.

How exactly are music videos piracy anyway, they are a promotional tool for the labels - always have been. They are all over broadcast TV, music channels, it's the labels own fault for doing this as consumers have become used to not pay

Whether it's morally right or not is completely irrelevant because there's no way to stop it. People will continue to place content for which Warner holds the copyright on YouTube, and Warner will have to spend money to have people check for that content and have it removed. Even if they do have marginal success with removing the content from YouTube it will only pop up on other video websites.

Some of these websites will not fall under the jurisdiction of the United States and can politely tell Warner to pi

It has nothing to do with "business model", it has to do with the entire business.

If it is permitted for Google/YouTube to post content without compensating the content owner and make millions of dollars off of it through advertising revenue, what possible hope does the content owner have anyway?

Someone is going to make money off the content, but it sure isn't going to be the producers/owners of that content. It is going to be Google.

The only reasonable thing to do is to immediately stop providing free con

and you do not have to know Russian. This is why competition is good, if they succeed on youtube, there are plenty of alternatives out there, especially if you speak a foreign language. Globalization is backfiring at the megacorporations.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't music videos basically just promotional tools used to sell albums? Maybe things have changed since the early MTV days, which also probably the last time I watched a music video, but I've always been under the impression that the reason these were made in the first place was simply a way to sell an album (or song, nowadays). I mean, really, do people actually *buy* music videos (and I'm not talking about extended length live performance videos, just the old school MTV stuff).

Maybe things have changed in this arena in recent years, but I can't really see this as anything except another stark example of a music industry dinosaur that just wants to stay locked in it's old anti-digital model. That and, of course, the fact that they want to squeeze anyone they can to try and extort as much money as they can before they finally die off because they refuse to accept change.

Indeed they are, which is why I've always wondered why the labels don't provide them for free. You can't watch them in many places and as such that doesn't really remove the incentive to purchase the CD, but even a decent web only place to watch would have been a great marketing approach. Or just bundle them with the disc.